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elections make for strange bedfellows.

there i was reading the daily mirror - the front page all about some girl from 'coronation street' battling cancer. a tiny box telling us that alan johnson (secretary of state for the home department) believes labour can win. true the whole piece was very short. it isn't like i would expect the mirror to big up the labour party or anything, after all corrie is so much more important than a national election.

also included in the paper was an 'exclusive' with ross kemp. ross had this to say: "after seeing the debates, i think it would be easy to confuse the election with a personality contest. ultimately this election is about who is the person to look after you and your family for the next five years not who would like to go for a pint with." (ross kemp, daily mirror, may 3rd).

now i am not the wisest person in the world, but given the circumstances that looks to me to be something you put on your front page, especially as kemp is going on to endorse gordon brown and labour.
oh hold on, someone from corrie might be dying. yup that is the story to go with.

to make matters worse (well for me) a similar view has been expressed by rod liddle. he had described the fact that the three tv debates had made such an impact as 'frankly worrying'. i couldn't help but agree with rod, not something i can say very often.

that the election for prime minister seems to have hinged on three tv debates and little else does point to a new style of politics. much more presidential and much more superficial. if we are going to elect just based on their ability to look at a camera and remember the names of some people in the audience then i think we have entered a dangerous era.
if it is going to come down to how they are on tv then i want more. sure they can deliver statistics to the camera, of course they can reel of policies while engaging the audience, and certainly they can all point out the weaknesses in their opponents. simple stuff.
but can they do it while spinning plates? can they do it while juggling on a unicycle? how about if they had to sing the statistics in a folk styling? or they could only denigrate the opposing policies while drinking a glass of water with a ventriloquist dummy on their laps. at least that way we will have some fun and we will know that the future prime minister is game for a laugh.